The common firecrest is a small passerine bird in the kinglet family. It breeds in most of temperate Europe and northwestern Africa. It has bright olive-green upperparts with a bronze-coloured patch on each shoulder. It may be hunted and killed by birds of prey, and can carry parasites.
About Common firecrest in brief
The common firecrest is a small passerine bird in the kinglet family. It breeds in most of temperate Europe and northwestern Africa, and is partially migratory. It has bright olive-green upperparts with a bronze-coloured patch on each shoulder, and whitish underparts washed with brownish-grey on the breast and flanks. The head pattern is striking, with a black eye stripe, long white supercilium, and a crest which is bright yellow in the female and mainly orange in the male. Despite some possible local declines, the species is not the subject of significant conservation concerns owing to its large European population and an expansion of its range over the last century. It may be hunted and killed by birds of prey, and can carry parasites. It is possible that this species was the original \”king of the birds\” in European folklore. The species was first formally described by Dutch zoologist Jacob Temminck in 1820. The names of the family, Regulidae, and genus, Regulus, are derived from the Latin regulus, a diminutive of rex, or kingx, and refer to the characteristic orange or yellow crests of adult kinglets. The name Regulus Regulus refers to the red-crested kinglet, which is the only member of the genus Regulus in the family Regulaceae. It was first described by Jacob Coenraad in the late 1820; it is now considered a relatively relatively recent species of kinglet by zoologist Sylvia Coonan in the 19th century.
A fossil ancestor has been identified from a single wing bone, and the species was thought to be the same as the goldcrest until the mid-19th century, when it was separated from it by more recent DNA evidence. The bird is constantly on the move and frequently hovers as it searches for insects to eat, and in winter it is often found with flocks of tits. The sexes are very similar, apart from the crest colour, although the female is a little duller in plumage and on average slightly smaller. Juveniles have a grey tinge to the duller upperparts, and lack the coloured crown; the other head markings are present, but duller than in the adult. By their first winter, only the flight and tail feathers remain unmoulted and the young birds are virtually indistinguishable from the adults in the field. This kinglet usually hops with its body held horizontally, and its flight is weak and whirring, with occasional quick evasive turns. There is more likelihood of confusing the juvenile fire crest with the yellow-browed warbler, which has a similar head pattern and pale fringes to the feathers of its closed wing, darker brown belly and yellow rump. The yellow- Browed warblers are a small group of Old World warblers, sometimes included as recent family birds in family status, but research shows that the resemblances are superficial, despite the phylogenetically remote from the warblers.
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This page is based on the article Common firecrest published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 02, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
